The Founding Fathers had the best of intentions, but one fatal flaw: They assumed the leaders of the nation would all have some level of basic decency. Now there’s Trump, who’s only going to get worse. As bad as it has been these last few years, how will women ever survive to the end of the Trump-Putin era? A trip to the Salon has the answer to this question and more.
Patriarchy Trumps All?
Donald Trump was elected. Donald Trump was acquitted. Donald Trump was re-elected – wait. That last one hasn’t happened yet – but many believe it will. How, oh how, will women ever survive another four years in a patriarchy that trumps female supremacy – also called “equality” by those woke enough to matter?
Karate helps, according to Andrea Mazzarino in her Salon article, titled: “'We’ve been attacked!’ Women and trauma in the Trump-Putin era.” Rather than march in January for the right to kill unborn children, Andrea was at the dojo, testing for her first belt. It was time to punch through a two-inch board. Everyone clapped when she, grinning, split it. How did she focus? “Imagine the board is Trump,” one of the black belts had told her.
Despite the pride of annihilating a two-inch-thick wooden Trump, however, she bit her lip in shame, knowing that she should have been at the march with her two children. They’re the ones, of course, who will inherit the gender-unequal world. Though, as the author later admits, her three-year-old is likely safer with Mom at the dojo than out holding an anti-Trump placard – as if she, at three, could even begin to understand either the politics or the irony of a toddler or preschooler holding a sign protesting for the right of grown women to kill their children rather than birth them.
But that is what the word “equality” means to progressives: superiority – female superiority, in this case, specifically. The author makes mention of the #MeToo movement, the alleged gender wage gap – many have demonstrated this false time and again, including Liberty Nation’s Andrew Moran – and “reproductive rights.”
Believe all women – as if no woman has ever told a lie. Pay the ladies just as much as the gentlemen – but don’t ask that they major in the same subjects, take equally dangerous jobs, or work just as many hours as the men. Just give them the money. And, of course, in a society that allows elective abortions but hands out murder charges when violent crimes end the lives of unborn children – intentionally or otherwise – only a pregnant woman (let’s be more selective with the term “mother,” shall we?) has the right to decide whether her child should live or die. One wonders if a man could be charged with murder for causing a woman to miscarry on her way to the abortion clinic.
Progressing Through Time?
(Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
If you share Andrea Mazzarino’s opinion of the president, Lucian K. Truscott IV has some bad news for you. He has seen the future and Trump is only going to get worse. Also writing for Salon, this progressive drifting through time shares the worst of the terrors he witnessed during his mystical journey through the spirit realm – or whatever it is he thinks enabled him to see into the future. After being acquitted by the Senate, Trump had the audacity to openly call those who ramrodded a baseless impeachment through the House merely by flexing their majority muscle "the crookedest, most dishonest, dirtiest people I've ever known,” along with some one-word insults like “corrupt” and “evil” sprinkled in for spice.
The president jumped with both feet into the investigation of Hunter Biden’s time at Burisma and Joe Biden’s meddling to remove any obstacles. Is it so unreasonable that, after being impeached for allegedly threatening foreign aid to get the Ukrainian president to do his bidding, Donald Trump would want to get back to the investigation of the Bidens? Joe Biden did exactly what Trump was accused of – then bragged openly about it.
Today it’s Hunter Biden. Who’s next? The author implies that no one is safe from Trump the Terrible, tyrant of the ages.
“If you carry an AK-47 and follow Muhammad, I’d keep my head down between now and the first Tuesday in November,” he writes. And don’t forget those crazy MAGA-hat-wearing militia freaks. “Trump will promise to defend the Second Amendment and rant and rave against the ‘enemies of the people’ at his next rally,” Truscott wrote. “His base will lap it up.” And of course, by lap it up, he means take potshots at reporters.
But the greatest nugget Truscott saves for the final paragraph: “I would say he does stuff because it makes him happy, but I don’t think he’s capable of even a scintilla of joy.” So there you have it. Trump is going to “break the great American elevator and bring this country crashing down with him,” and it’s all because, as we all know, misery loves company.
Salon’s Fatal Flaw: Willful Ignorance?
How can a deviant and tyrant like Trump ascend to the presidency – then actually stay in office? He has exploited the Founding Fathers’ fatal flaw. As good as their intentions were, they were fools, apparently. As David Masciotra – also writing for Salon – explained, “The founders assumed our leaders would have some basic decency.”
This author is about half right. He argues that faith, like decency, will disappear the second that people no longer honor or act on it. This is true. It’s also precisely why the Founders did not assume that all future leaders of the United States would have some sense of decency. Rather than wade through the muck of presidents past to expose those who disgraced the Oval Office long before the time of Trump, let’s look at what the Founders thought about people putting their faith in the benevolence of government leaders. But first, a side note for Mr. Masciotra: We capitalize Founders and Founding Fathers in America.
Now back to the history lesson: Some did believe that future leaders would honor the spirit of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and that no further safeguards were required. From their perspective, the Declaration makes clear the spirit of liberty, and the Constitution makes clear what limited powers the government has. Indeed, writing out a list of protected rights could later be used by unscrupulous leaders to argue that any right not so enumerated could not exist. After all, it isn’t on your sacred list, now is it?
Thankfully, not everyone with a say in the matter agreed. Others worried that those who never had to fight for freedom from a distant monarchy bent on abuse would take advantage of the loose framework of the Constitution and fill in the gaps by writing in more power for themselves.
Sadly, both sides were correct. Regardless of what political party has control of Congress and the White House, laws seem to be written and passed with an unfortunate frequency that erases some small bit of that liberty the Founders worked so hard toward. This is sometimes done under the argument that if “rights” aren’t explicitly protected by the Constitution or some amendment, they don’t exist. Other times, it’s under the assumption that since the Constitution doesn’t forbid some authority, the government isn’t prohibited from simply naming and claiming it. And, all too often, such laws are justified either by twisting the words of the Founders or simply ignoring them.
No, the Founders most certainly did not assume that all future leaders would be stand up guys. That’s why we have that Second Amendment Masciotra mentions so dismissively in his article. As Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to James Madison: “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.”
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